I'm Coming Home
by sammieleelee
Summary: The story of Rachel's return to La Push.


**Alright, so I usually hate reading/saying this, but - Yes - this is my first story on FF. I'm guilty of this too, but please don't judge based on that.**

**Anyway... Rachel and Paul are by-far my favorite Imprinting couple (Besides Jake and Nessie). So.. Here it is! Please Review!**

**-Sammie**

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**I'm going home. Back to the place where I belong,  
****where your love has always been enough for me.  
****I'm not running from, no, I think you got me all wrong.  
****I don't regret this life I chose for me.****  
But these places and these faces are getting old,  
So I'm going home.**  
Daughtry – Home

_Welcome to La Push: Quileute Indian Reservation_

Rachel Black groaned as she saw the sign. Being back here was the last thing she wanted to do, but after she'd graduated early at the end of the summer semester at Washington State University, there was no other choice. Of course, she could go out into the real world on her own. But she knew she couldn't handle it, at least not now.

Rachel knew people had problems worse than hers, and she didn't want to complain all the time. But lately, her life had fallen apart.

It didn't help that she got a cryptic phone call from her dad's best friend and Chief of Police in Forks, Charlie Swan, during finals, saying that her baby brother Jacob had literally run away. The only thing she could think about was her little brother out in the world on his own. How could he do something like that? How could he do that to their father?

Okay, so maybe he was seventeen, and had enough sense to take care of himself. But seriously, what seventeen-year-old _runs away?_

After everything, Jake running away was enough to make her scream.

Rachel couldn't pinpoint the exact moment when her life fell apart; but after her mother died when she was fifteen, everything went downhill from there. The last thing she wanted to do was be back in La Push, with all the memories constantly in her face. She loved her family, really, but they would pry and want to know everything that happened since she left, and Rachel didn't think she could tell them. The truth would kill them.

Jacob especially.

She always thought that her baby brother Jake should've been born first. He'd acted like the oldest from the beginning, even though he was four and a half years younger. Her twin sister, Rebecca, thought it was because he was so much younger when their mother passed away. When everyone else was falling apart, he still stood strong, mostly because he didn't understand what happened. Her dad, Billy, said it was because he was an 'old soul.' But Rachel knew it was mostly because he saw the world the same way he always had; He never had to deal with such a heart-wrenching sadness that ruined the innocence of the world.

_Innocence._ Rachel almost laughed. But it was more of a sarcastic laugh, than the real one she hadn't heard in years.

If Jake were to find out the truth about what happened, he would find a way to blame himself.

Or maybe he would blame her? No, that couldn't happen… Right?

But he was so mad when she and Rebecca left without a word three years ago. If Jake blamed her like all the others, she wouldn't be able to take it. And if he blamed her, then her dad would blame her, and then she was sure Becca would blame her, too.

And then…

Rachel shivered when she thought of the memories she'd tried so hard to suppress. She blinked a few times, shaking the horrible thoughts out of her head, and continued on down the highway toward home.

It had been a while since she'd even thought of the little red shack in the woods of La Push. It held everything she ran from in the first place. And now she was running back to the place she was running from.

_How freaking ironic. _

And for the second time today, Rachel almost sarcastically laughed again.

Continuing down the road, she felt her heartbeat pickup as she neared exit 5.

Just past the sign for it was a hemlock tree with a limb still split down the middle and truck-shaped scrapes and dents on the side closest to the highway.

Rachel pulled her car over to the shoulder, parking and turning off the engine. She lowered her head to her hands on the steering wheel and took a deep breath, fighting the urge to throw up.

_Come on. You can do this. It's been six years._

Finally regaining her composure, Rachel unbuckled her seatbelt and slid out of her used Ford Focus, locking the car behind her. As she made her way closer to the battered tree, she felt the familiar sting of tears behind her eyes. Still, she kept walking down the grassy hill until her hand hit the red chips of paint and the broken bark on the hemlock. She looked down, with tears blurring her vision. A white cross sat at the bottom of the tree.

Rachel bent down to trace the engraving on the cross.

_In Loving Memory of_

_Sarah Elaine Black_

All of a sudden she saw the scene play before her, as if she'd been there. The way it still haunted her in her sleep. She heard the crunching of metal and the screeching of tires. She could smell the gasoline and blood. She felt the slam of the impact and the whiplash. And if she listened any longer, she knew she'd hear the screams of her parents.

She shuddered at the memory of the reason her father was in the wheelchair at all; the reason her mother was dead.

"I love you mommy," Rachel whispered, looking up and wiping the single tear off her cheek.

She climbed back up the hill to her car, starting it up and merging back on to the highway.

As Rachel drove further into town, she noticed all the things most people would've missed while being away from the tiny town of La Push.

Well, most people.

The grocery store on the corner had the same flaky paint job for as long as she could remember. The auto shop at the edge of town still had the same rundown mustang for sale that she'd seen in the rearview mirror as she left this godforsaken town. The roller rink, the pathetic excuse for a shopping center, the rusty old park, the tiny rez school; everything looked exactly as she'd left it three years ago.

In the years she'd been gone, nothing had changed. And that's what she was afraid of. It wasn't the town itself that scared her, but the familiarity of it all. And that brought back painful memories of the reason she'd split town so fast.

And painful memories of the reason she'd left town brought back painful memories of why she was back in town in the first place.

As she pulled into the gravel driveway of her childhood home, Rachel let out a shaky breath.

_Home._ There it was. She parked the car and turned off the engine as she took in everything. The shutters were still off the hinges and the paint was chipping off but the little red house looked exactly the same, just like everything else in the town. It made her nervous - incredibly nervous - to be back in this town again, much less back in her house again. All the memories came flying back to her; showing no mercy as if someone was wanting for her to suffer.

"_Rachel, Rebecca, Jake? Its Aunt Kayla, we need to go to the hospital!"_

"_We tried everything we could. We lost her."_

"_I'm sorry for your loss." - "Yeah, well that doesn't bring my mom back, does it?"_

Rachel closed her eyes, breathing deeply and trying not to freak out. Tears started filling her eyes as she gripped the steering wheel, making her knuckles turn white. Ever since – _that day _– she'd been having panic attacks. Heart stopping, gut-wrenching, barely-able-to-breathe panic attacks. She got out of the car and walked up to the door, trying to avoid a panic attack and muster up enough courage to knock.

After three knocks and a few seconds, the door finally opened. Rachel kept her head down, not wanting to face her family after all these years.

"Rachel?"

She lifted her tear-filled eyes to a messy-haired Jacob just in his sweatpants.

"Jakey" Rachel sighed, throwing herself into his arms.

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**Once again, please Review, Favorite and Story Alert! Remember: No Reviews=No Updates! :) **

**-Sammie**


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